


The Roads of Far Away

by CatTheGrimReaper



Category: Skulduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy
Genre: Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:13:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27838900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatTheGrimReaper/pseuds/CatTheGrimReaper
Summary: Valkyrie lives in the aftermath of Devastation Day, not feeling at home anymore. She seems to be on the verge of some decision, but as ever, it needs some violence for her to realize it.
Relationships: Valkyrie Cain & Skulduggery Pleasant
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6
Collections: Skulduggery Pleasant Fic Exchange 2020





	The Roads of Far Away

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SpellsOfScarlet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpellsOfScarlet/gifts).



> I got the idea from a scrapped chapter that Derek included at the end of “End of the World”, in which Valkyrie is poisoned and doesn’t wake up for two whole days, which gets her in trouble with her family. This is a different take on that scenario.

The pain wasn’t really the worst thing. It wasn’t even her hurt pride, even though she hated losing. No, the worst thing was feeling how the fight drained out of her. As if all the fight she had was circulating in her blood, which was in the process of being claimed by the venom.

Valkyrie wasn’t one to give up. Not even when she had been lying dead, her heart literally ripped from her chest, had her will been broken. Not even when she was controlled by a God, pushed into the tiniest, darkest corner of her mind, had she even thought about giving in to nothingness. If there was one conviction that Valkyrie had, it was the inevitability of a stupid plan that wouldn’t work but that would ultimately lead to their rescue in the last possible moment; Skulduggery leading the charge.

But this time? This time there was no conviction. There was no plan to save anyone. There was just pain and no fight. No hope. Only darkness pulsating behind her eyelids, resonating with the darkness in her thoughts.

Also, and probably most importantly, there was no Skulduggery. Because Valkyrie was stupid. And not fun to be around. And generally unapproachable, at least for the last few months.

It started when she took off, again. It had been especially brutal to look into Alice’s eyes today, on her birthday. So, when the opportunity presented itself, she slipped out the door, a meagre excuse on her lips of some case she had to work on. Her parents were trying to accept the life she’d chosen, but she could still see the pain in their eyes whenever something reminded them of _that day._ Life in her house wasn’t really working anymore.

She got in her car, a used, sleek black Audi A3 Coupé, which wasn’t nearly as conspicuous as the Oompa-Loompa. She didn’t want to be conspicuous today.

The road ended far too soon, giving away to stone roads, dirt and grit, giving away to cliffs, giving away to the sea. It was a beautiful sight, that she couldn’t take in. The breeze tugged at her hair and she wished for it to rip it out, to cause pain, to cause any kind of sensation other than this dull throbbing. She wished it would take her away, carry her into the sky like only Skulduggery could. God, how she wished she could just be an Elemental again, carry herself over the clouds and out of sight. Push paper clips and click her fingers, make it rain. She wished for simpler days, where Skulduggery would teach her, and she would ignore him. Where they’d bicker and get into trouble but come out on top. But it didn’t feel right anymore. Every smile felt undeserved, every joke like an aggressive reminder of every person that would never be able to hear it.

She was almost thankful for all the people that hated her and didn’t even think about hiding it. 1148 people – or what remained of them – had her name written on their graves. She had the face of a monster. And maybe she had even more in common with it than just her face.

She couldn’t go into Roarhaven anymore, nor did she want to. She couldn’t work cases anymore, nor did she see any reason to. Most of the time, the victim would just add to her kill count. Not all bodies had been identified, people had been reported missing after… that day. The true detective work was really to separate Darquesse-cases from non-Darquesse-cases. Someone else could do that.

After she could no longer feel her cheeks, her nose and her ears, she got back in her car, cursing herself for standing on a seaside cliff for hours, in February. The thought of going back home made her feel even colder. She considered going to Gordon’s place, but she didn’t want anything familiar. She didn’t want to be found. She cursed Ireland for being an Island, robbing her of the opportunity to drive a thousand miles on a whim. If she was living in America, she would have driven across the country several times in these last few months. A shudder ran through her spine when she thought about Fletcher and how easy it would be to call him. She stopped herself though – if she didn’t want her own company, Fletcher sure wouldn’t either.

With her head racing along a road 4000 miles away, she found herself a place to park; one that wasn’t so out in the open. Long days and weeks away from home, back when everything was normal, had taught her to always be prepared, so she unpacked a survival kit with a thick blanket and a pillow, as well as something to eat. She snuggled up in her blanket, soaked up the residual warmth of the air conditioning and went to sleep. Which was easy for once, after driving hours upon hours and standing in the cold for so long. She didn’t sleep well, but she slept.

At least until she heard the dull sound of a shattering car window, the sound of the car door and felt strong hands grip her ankles, yanking her from the car with such force that a painful jolt ran through her hip. She banged her head on the door frame and landed on the frozen ground. Without her protective clothing, she could feel every blade of grass poking her like tiny knives made of ice. Above her were three figures, dressed in black. They didn’t hide their faces. They didn’t have to. She had never seen them before, but she recognized their expressions. Cold hatred, colder even than the air around them, was etched into their features, as if they, like the grass, were frozen solid. Three ordinary people, two men and a woman, all three with brown hair, dark eyes. Not especially beautiful, but young and strong. Valkyrie knew why they’d come before even one of them could open their mouth. She just lay there, staring into their faces in quick succession.

“Aren’t you going to fight?” spat one of the two men. Disgust made his words sharp, like a dog’s bark in an empty night.

Valkyrie didn’t answer. No point.

“Guess she doesn’t think we’re worth the effort. That we’re so far below the godly Darquesse, we could be insects for all she cared,” said the woman with a sneer.

“I’m not Darquesse,” Valkyrie mumbled, her teeth gritted to keep them from chattering.

“Oh, you’re not Darquesse, are you?” scoffed the man who hadn’t yet spoken. “You’re not the one who killed me mother then? And her girlfriend and his son?!” He pointed at the woman and the man. “You just look like her, do you? You’re not to blame, are you? The great Valkyrie Cain, partner of the equally great Skulduggery Pleasant. A detective like you couldn’t possibly not know about Darquesse! Her own true name! Don’t think we’re stupid, we _know_ you’re not Darquesse, but we also know that you’re the one responsible for her existence. You should have offed yourself the moment you saw that vision, you stupid, spoiled little girl! You should have put yourself out of your misery, before you put everyone else into misery.” He took a deep breath and exhaled, calming himself enough to continue. Valkyrie watched the twirl of his breath in the air.

“You thought about it, didn’t you? Earlier on that cliff?” the man jeered.

Valkyrie suddenly felt stupid, being followed like that without noticing.

“You followed me?” she asked, while slowly getting to her feet. The three people eyed her suspiciously.

“For a few weeks now, yes,” the other man said. “We waited months. We shouldn’t have been surprised that ‘Grand Mage’ Sorrows cleared your name. She could not bring you to justice, even if she wanted to. She’s much too scared of the Skeleton. So now we’re here to do it.” He laughed once.

Valkyrie kept her face even. “And you’re not afraid of Skulduggery?”

The woman spoke up. “Certainly not. You haven’t been to Roarhaven for a while, have you? Pleasant has even less friends than before all of this, if you can believe it. He can’t touch us.”

Despite herself, Valkyrie smiled a tiny sad smile. “Yeah, I’ve thought about it. On the cliff, I mean. But don’t be stupid. If you kill me now, Skulduggery will find you, and he’ll kill you. No one is ever safe from him.”

All three snickered at that.

“Good thing we’re not here to kill you then,” said the monologuing man. Then they came for her.

Without her protective clothing, it was easy for them. Without her head in the game and without her conviction that she was a good person who didn’t deserve bad things, it was easy for them.

They’d poisoned her. Just a prick with a knife, that had done it. Now she lay there, her head propped up awkwardly against the cold rubber of her tire, her body twisted, her hands hanging there. A bit of drool escaped her mouth after a while, and she couldn’t do anything.

She lay, without pain now, that had stopped a while ago, and couldn’t even feel herself dying. Her mind was sharp and she didn’t feel anything but her mind and the darkness within. Not even the cold. Not even the cramps that were undoubtedly shooting through her body. She lay there with her eyes open, probably freezing over in the cold night. She could see only darkness, no stars peeking through the clouds.

“We’re giving you the sentence you deserve,” they had said. “You said that you were trapped inside your head when Darquesse was in control, didn’t you? Well, what better way to punish you?” They left her there but promised to alert someone come morning. “We don’t want you to die now, do we?”

She did, though. She wanted to die. She wanted to finally be freed from her own head. In midst of all the pulsating darkness in her mind, she knew that those people had found the perfect punishment. The one she probably deserved. So, she lay there, drooling, wanting to die and thought how ironic it was, that just this one time, it would be better if Skulduggery didn’t show up for a last-minute rescue.

She woke. Darkness. Fog in her head. She slept.

She woke. Less Darkness. Day? She slept.

She woke. Bright. Red Eyelids in front of her eyes. She tried to open them. Flutter. Rays of sunlight into her eyes. It felt painful. Pain? She slept.

She woke. Dim light from behind her. Shadow on the wall. Human-shaped shadow. Her name. Soft, like silk. She slept.

“Valkyrie.” Soft again, but rough edges. She opened her eyes. Stared into Skulduggery’s head.

“Valkyrie,” he said again, his voice stronger. She felt a dull sensation on her hand. She also felt her hand. And her arm. She felt her body. But dull. As if it was only a copy of her body, made of clay.

She opened her mouth, sluggishly, as if she was drunk, but no sound came over her lips.

Skulduggery must have squeezed her hand, because the dull sensation became stronger and then weaker.

“You can’t speak yet, Valkyrie. It will take some time. Do you remember what happened?”

Valkyrie nodded, which must have looked ridiculous, but Skulduggery seemed to understand.

“I assume you remember everything up until morning?” it was more of a statement than a question.

Awkward nod.

“Cleavers were tipped off to your location and brought you in with Fletcher’s help. Dr. Synecdoche helped you. As best as she could.” His voice grew quiet at the end.

Valkyrie tried to make a puzzled expression.

“The poison is very tricky. It was specifically made for you, synchronized to your magic, your life force. It wasn’t designed to kill. It was designed to destroy your body without actually causing any harm. Dr. Synecdoche could reverse some effects, but only after she had examined the poison closely. The healing process will be longer than if she’d known everything about it right away.”

Valkyrie moved her lips.

“You were out for a week. You woke up faster than expected.” His voice was even as ever, but Valkyrie could still sense his relief. Not that she felt it herself.

Skulduggery’s shadowy figure stood up then, excusing himself to call Reverie.

When Valkyrie examined the small portion of the room she could see, she realized for the first time that she wasn’t in a clinic; she was in Skulduggery’s house. She was lying in a hospital bed, with wires and tubes and everything. There was no opportunity to sort her thoughts, because Skulduggery was already back, Reverie at his side. Valkyrie thought she heard Skulduggery talk to someone behind Reverie and then a soft _plop_ , but when she looked, she could only see Skulduggery, straightening his tie.

Cursed Poison. That was the name of substances like the one she had been infected with. Poison infused with magic, more potent than anything mortals could create in their labs, as it is specifically designed to act on the magic signature of one individual. It kills every person except the designated receiver, to whom it can do almost anything, at least physically. The only thing it doesn’t touch is the mind. In the War, it had been used to sabotage the bodies of enemy soldiers and also, of course, to torture them. It proved to be highly effective, because there was never any unconsciousness to hide in, if not specifically induced like in Valkyrie’s case. The diabolical part was that it was almost untraceable, because it had the same magic signature as the host, while not actually doing anything biological.

This was only one of the things that Skulduggery told her over the next week. Valkyrie wondered how they had immediately known that it was this specific toxin, and Skulduggery answered her question as if he had read her mind.

“The poison didn’t work right with you. It couldn’t imitate your unique… frequency. You wouldn’t be able to move otherwise.”

Valkyrie huffed at that, as her voice was still unusable.

The first thing to return to her was the control of her arms and hands, which was very fortunate, because even in the state she was in, she didn’t want Skulduggery to have to help her change clothes. Not again at least – the first and only time had been very awkward, to say the least. At least she didn’t have to worry about going to the bathroom, thanks to the sigils carved into the bed. The thought of Skulduggery helping her with _that_ was practically unbearable.

“Do you want to go home?” he had asked on the night she had fully regained consciousness.

“No,” she mouthed while shaking her head. She didn’t look at him, but she could feel him looking at her silently for a while.

“I didn’t think you would want to stay in a Roarhaven hospital – _I_ didn’t want you to stay there. It seems there are even less people we can trust than before.” He paused. “I wanted to know you’re safe. And I wanted you close to me.”

Valkyrie still couldn’t look at him, so she only shook her head. _You can’t protect me forever,_ she thought.

Even though she knew he hadn’t heard her thoughts, his words warmed her.

“For now, at least,” he said softly. He turned to go then, but she used her new-found dexterity to grab his gloved hand. When he turned back, she could finally look into his face. His expression was, of course, the same as ever, but she could feel him smiling. Even though everything was wrong, even though she was broken and wanted to be alone – only for now was her desire to have him by her side stronger than that. For as long as she was mute, she needed him to fill her silence.

“It’s okay, you know. Going away.”

Surprised, Valkyrie opened her eyes and looked at Skulduggery. He wasn’t looking at her.

“I know what you’re feeling. I felt it before. When the war became too much to handle, when I didn’t know if the battle I’d been fighting was still my own. I had lost my family, many of my friends and I had lost myself. I was, quite literally, only a portion of the man I once had been. So, I went away, and I became Lord Vile. Not the best coping mechanism, I have to admit, but I am confident in your ability to learn from my mistakes.”

Valkyrie tried to keep any emotion out of her face, but the fact that he had seen through her once again made her angry somehow. Was no decision safe from his scrutiny? Couldn’t he see this was different? He fled into the killing, she wanted to flee from it. She didn’t want to go because she had lost her family, she wanted to go to protect them – in exactly the way she had been too cowardly to do before all of this. A picture of Alice’s lifeless body crept into her mind and she flinched. He saw that.

“I know that our situations differ. I know that you want to go to protect your family, or at least to do no further harm to them,” – she flinched again at his choice of words, “but you will come to understand one day that while your actions may be terrible and will probably haunt you for a long time,” – she looked at him with an exasperated expression –, “you had no choice.” He looked at her piercingly, the whiteness of his skull in stark contrast with the blackness of his eye sockets. “There are things that need to be done, in war and otherwise, and we are the people that do them. We are also the people that have to live with them.”

Valkyrie sighed, oddly at ease with herself for once. Maybe because the fact that Skulduggery had brought it up made the decision final for her. She was going away, and as much as she wanted to be alone in her misery, the thought of Skulduggery, existing somewhere, like a home you could return to whenever you want, made her happy. A very suppressed, subdued, overshadowed kind of happy, but happy. There was comfort in him and his words, as there always had been and always would be.

“I can’t leave without saying goodbye to my parents. But I don’t think I can go if I see them.”

Skulduggery didn’t seem surprised to hear her speak. He probably knew that she had been hiding the fact that she was able to talk again. She inwardly rolled her eyes.

“I told them that we were on an undercover mission and that you couldn’t be contacted. I could tell them that the mission will be longer than anticipated.” Maybe she imagined it, but he sounded disapproving.

She shook her head, stood up and began to gather up her things.

“No, I have to say goodbye. I won’t lie to them anymore, at least not if I can help it. They would only worry about me.”

Skulduggery looked at her silently, his head tilted a little bit. He didn’t need to say it, she knew that they would worry anyway.   
When she had collected all her stuff, he stood up as well, and they faced each other.

Valkyrie suddenly felt awkward, so she broke the silence quickly. “Do I need to see Reverie again? Or am I clear?”

Skulduggery walked over to his coatrack and put on his coat and hat. While adjusting the brim, he said. “I think we can postpone that. There are other things to be done first – like packing.” With that, he turned to her and extended his hand. She took it and let him guide her to the Bentley – she was still weaker than she’d like. Now that her decision was final, she savoured every moment she had in the car, the soft leather seats and the familiar smell, the purr of the engine. She watched the world go by as Skulduggery drove towards Haggard. They were both silent, there really wasn’t anything to be said anymore. She could feel the darkness crowding her head again. Even though she had felt and did still feel at ease with her decision, she would never forget what drove her to it. The darkness wouldn’t go away any time soon, if ever. But now, there was a tiny light, barely noticeable, that would guide her back, once she was ready. Whenever that may be.

Before they arrived in Haggard, Skulduggery broke the silence. “Where will you be going, if I may ask?” he asked softly, as not to startle her.

With her mind on roads 4000 miles away, she just smiled.


End file.
